What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?
What profit has a man of all his labour under the sun, and the answer is none, for apart from God such labour brings no real or lasting profit, only vanity and vexation of spirit and utter uselessness. The question lays bare the vanity of human life when lived apart from God. All human pursuits so pursued end in vexation rather than gain.
It was spoken by Solomon, son of David and king in Jerusalem, as the preacher in his last days about the year 977. It belongs to that earlier period and not to the second century B.C.
He wrote from unsatisfying personal testing after tasting all pleasures the world could give, yielding to the desires of the heart and flesh. He tried luxury and wealth and power and feasting and wine and women and idolatry and all the luxuries the human mind could invent, until his heart was led away by his many wives. He learned by actual experience with hearty repentance that they satisfy nothing.
Labour is profitless because sin has made the world sorrowful and vain, so work is grievous and vexing and leaves sorrow and grief rather than rest. Wisdom, glory, wealth, and popularity cannot bring rest of soul. The eye remains unsatisfied with seeing and the ear is not filled with hearing, which confirms the disappointment of looking for lasting gain in the pursuits and labour of life under the sun.
Vain glory, worldly power, bodily pleasure, riches, noble birth, and ambitious desires bring only brief mirth whose pleasure can give way to misery and torment. Since people are mortal and return to the earth and death may meet them anywhere, earthly luxury offers no lasting security or gain. Labour and ambition confined to life under the sun do not extend beyond the grave and cannot provide a secure, sufficient portion, lasting security or gain, or protection from affliction.
The verse exposes the folly of earthly pursuits without hope in God and the nothingness of humanity without God. Its practical instruction interwoven through the sermon leads to man's whole duty in fearing God and keeping His commandments and trusting Him. This recognition calls a person to give self with love and labour to Jesus rather than reduce stewardship to how much to give to charity. Affliction checks the worldly spirit by showing that worldly success cannot satisfy or shield the heart.
What profit has a man of all his labour under the sun, and the answer is none, for apart from God such labour brings no real or lasting profit, only vanity and vexation of spirit and utter uselessness. The question lays bare the vanity of human life when lived apart from God. All human pursuits so pursued end in vexation rather than gain.
It was spoken by Solomon, son of David and king in Jerusalem, as the preacher in his last days about the year 977. It belongs to that earlier period and not to the second century B.C.
He wrote from unsatisfying personal testing after tasting all pleasures the world could give, yielding to the desires of the heart and flesh. He tried luxury and wealth and power and feasting and wine and women and idolatry and all the luxuries the human mind could invent, until his heart was led away by his many wives. He learned by actual experience with hearty repentance that they satisfy nothing.
Labour is profitless because sin has made the world sorrowful and vain, so work is grievous and vexing and leaves sorrow and grief rather than rest. Wisdom, glory, wealth, and popularity cannot bring rest of soul. The eye remains unsatisfied with seeing and the ear is not filled with hearing, which confirms the disappointment of looking for lasting gain in the pursuits and labour of life under the sun.
Vain glory, worldly power, bodily pleasure, riches, noble birth, and ambitious desires bring only brief mirth whose pleasure can give way to misery and torment. Since people are mortal and return to the earth and death may meet them anywhere, earthly luxury offers no lasting security or gain. Labour and ambition confined to life under the sun do not extend beyond the grave and cannot provide a secure, sufficient portion, lasting security or gain, or protection from affliction.
The verse exposes the folly of earthly pursuits without hope in God and the nothingness of humanity without God. Its practical instruction interwoven through the sermon leads to man's whole duty in fearing God and keeping His commandments and trusting Him. This recognition calls a person to give self with love and labour to Jesus rather than reduce stewardship to how much to give to charity. Affliction checks the worldly spirit by showing that worldly success cannot satisfy or shield the heart.